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Tuesday, 27 January 2004 -- Care Package... The box that Janice sent a week ago finally arrived (USPS said 3 business days...). All sorts of goodies - peanut butter cups, chocolate covered espresso beans, pretzels, Swoops, pack towels (washed several times, nice & soft & ready to use!), trail mix and a small Nerf football (her Dad told me to use one of these to strengthen my wrist). [he really did go on about how happy he was to get it, but y'all don't need to hear that!] Personnae Dramatis... The KINDRED SPIRIT CREW Lee - skipper, ex UK army captain JAK - your beloved Vagabond Peter - former HSBC investment manager from Jersey (UK not US), 35 Steve - an engineer from the London Underground, 41 Rolland - a former locksmith from Manchester, 46 Rio Barbie - our rostrum - we bought her at the Gateway mall weeks ago, she's cable tied to the bow
The SOLAR WIND CREW Jacko - skipper, Afrikaaner Fintan - 35 year old rugby freak from Calgary, Alberta, Canada Jeff - 23 year old from Madison, Wisconsin Chris - twenty something from Johannesburg - AKA "Satan" for his goatee and short black hair Jon - another Brit, late 50's Mark - programmer from the UK Wednesday, 28 January 2004 -- Letter #2... What weird 24 hours it's been. Last night it started out with a kick. 12 of us bundled into Jacko's (instructor on the other boat) new bucky (a bucky is local slang for a pickup truck). I sat in the bed with 6 of the guys, there were 5 others in the cab. Talk about 3rd world comfort!
We set off to the Gateway Mall in Uhmlanga (Um"sh"langa is the pronunciation - even though there is no SH in the spelling.... Zulu....). The purpose; rock climbing (aka team building). Gateway has, according to its employee's t-shirts, "The World's Highest Indoor Rock Climbing Wall". Hmmm, I think REI in Seattle makes that same claim.. but, I digress..... It was an absolute blast. I climbed 5 times, summited 3 times. It was one hell of a workout. Very sore feet and pretty sore arms (good thing I got that Vioxx from JJ, the wrist was pretty sore today).
Then we raced back to the RNYC to watch the Natal Sharks - the local rugby stars - take on the Harlequins (squad from England). The game was on TV from London. The rugby freaks were pretty damn happy. I found it reasonably interesting. After a night of rock climbing and rugby, I slept well. Very well! This morning we met Wyatt Earp the firefighting teacher. Firefighting Theory was the class. Things did not go well. The instructor was dreadful - he lost the class before he started. His introduction included the fact that he had not taught before. Oops. He was just filling in because the South African Safety Academy, the sub-contractor teaching this stuff, was really stretched. He had no business teaching. 22 years of experience fighting fires did not mean he could teach it. The "lecture" wandered completely aimlessly from one digression to the next. At one break, we complained to the OSA staff. One of them sat in for a few minutes. At lunch he agreed with our assessment. It was so bad that Steve did not return to class - the first time anybody has played hooky. Within minutes of starting up again he started a new digression: "I've brought a gun with me today". Oh shit. Then he told an overtly racist story about why he had the gun. So he pulled this gun out of his kit bag. Oh Shit! "Well, it's not a real gun, but it is..." click! POP!!! click!! POP!!!! It was a pellet gun. The two pellets ricocheted around a bit. Pete and Jeff got up and left. I was packing my stuff and the crazy dude decided to take issue with me. "Why are you doing this?" Because I'm tired of meaningless digressions and not learning anything. And I'm especially not in the mood for gun play. And it went "pear shaped" (as Fintan says) from there. He was riled up; a young punk student said I was disrespecting an elder; I said if he wanted to discuss this after class (so the others could continue learning) that would be fine. Jacko stepped into the room and asked him for a moment outside. More bitching and moaning. In the end he was sent home and the dirty old coot that owns the training firm pinch hit. Badly. He had not taught this stuff for several years. But at least there was no more gunplay. Thursday, 29 January 2004 -- Yawn!!!... Another classroom day. Fred bored us with his lack of firefighting teaching skills. I'm beat. The rain hit last night and has been coming down in buckets ever since. There's a cyclone just east of Madagascar that's driving this system. Friday, 30 January 2004 -- Practical Applications... The Firefighting Practical. We piled into minivans and trekked over to an army/navy installation. There we took turns extinguishing a pan of flaming petrol with extinguishers - CO2, dry chemical powder, foam. Then we donned SCBA (self contained breathing apparatus). "Luke, I'm your father" was abused..... We had to climb 3 sets of ladders in the pitch dark of a water tower. Cool and scary both! Back to the club. A shower, a drink and we were off to the Cricket Oval (Kingsmeade). The RSA vs the BWI in a 50 overs, one day match. Fun and everything I hoped for. From left to right in photo, Steve, Fintan, Chris (Jr. Instructor) and Pete. Steve, Pete, Chris and I sucked down countless pitchers of beer, ate tikka chicken, steak rolls, burgers and a lot more beer. Rain kept the match from completion, but it was a helluva good time!
Saturday, 31 January 2004 -- What was that I said about HANGOVERS??... How did I think I wasn't hungover? As time went by I felt worse and worse. I spent the day catching up on email and re-hydrating. We've done very little sailing in the past 10 days - between the rain and the safety training, there's been no time. Tomorrow we leave for Umkomaas to do the dive course. The diving there is supposed to be good. I'm looking forward to getting back in the water. |
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